TY - JOUR AU - Vermerris, Wilfred AU - Thompson, Karen J. AU - McIntyre, Lauren M. AU - Axtell, John D. PY - 2002 DA - 2002/01/07 TI - Evidence for an evolutionarily conserved interaction between cell wall biosynthesis and flowering in maize and sorghum JO - BMC Evolutionary Biology SP - 2 VL - 2 IS - 1 AB - Factors that affect flowering vary among different plant species, and in the grasses in particular the exact mechanism behind this transition is not fully understood. The brown midrib (bm) mutants of maize (Zea mays L.), which have altered cell wall composition, have different flowering dynamics compared to their wild-type counterparts. This is indicative of a link between cell wall biogenesis and flowering. In order to test whether this relationship also exists in other grasses, the flowering dynamics in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) were investigated. Sorghum is evolutionarily closely related to maize, and a set of brown midrib (bmr) mutants similar to the maize bm mutants is available, making sorghum a suitable choice for study in this context. SN - 1471-2148 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-2-2 DO - 10.1186/1471-2148-2-2 ID - Vermerris2002 ER -